With the development of digital multimedia and networks, entertainment experiences in daily life are enriched. Existing techniques enable people at home to enjoy high definition TV programs from a digital disk, cable TV or the Internet and the like. In addition, users are enabled to experience stereo, 5.1 acoustic channel, 7.1 acoustic channel or even more realistic sound effect; people can also implement these experiences using a tablet electronic device (pad) or a mobile phone; moreover, playing of digital content can be transferred between equipments through a network, and the playing in an equipment can be controlled through a remote controller or through a gesture, such as control of switching to a previous and a next channel.
In the related art, for controlling multiple equipments, generally each equipment has a respective remote controller to perform control, but these remote controllers are not universal, and most of these controllers, such as a traditional TV set or sound box, cannot be networked. There may be some network enabled controllers, for example, an equipment (e.g., a mobile phone, a pad) having computing and networking capabilities can be loaded with software supporting intercommunication protocols to control another equipment. Gesture control is currently a relatively new control manner in which a camera on an equipment monitors gesture actions and then analyzes and identifies them, finally the gesture actions are converted to control of the equipment.
With the development of techniques, there are increasing demands for sharing and transferring of content being played between multiple equipments, and the above control method is apparently not so convenient; people may need to select one remote controller corresponding to a specific equipment from a pile of remote controllers and change remote controllers from time to time to control different equipments, or the equipment can be controlled through operations on a pad or a mobile phone by people familiar with basic operations on computers, or a single equipment is controlled by simple gestures. People prefer to use an easier and more natural operation way to control shared playing or transferred playing of content.
Some products in the related art enable people to transfer digital media content being played on an equipment to another equipment, for example, an existing Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol enables transferring of video played on a mobile phone to a TV. Some manufacturers of TVs, mobile phones, players and home storages have also produced similar products.
When such a play transferring functionality is used, it is desired in certain cases that transferred play can be transferred back, for example, content transferred and watched on a TV is transferred to its original mobile phone so as to be carried out for play, or after being transferred back to the mobile phone, the content is transferred to another equipment such as a computer so as to be watched thereon. People can, of course, implement these functions with a menu of a computer application on a TV, but it is desired that the operation can be easier and more natural.
It is desired that content, after being subjected to inter-equipment transfer and collaborative play, can be switched back to its original equipment through an easier and more natural operation, so as to provide users with more relaxed and enjoyed entertainment, and users also require that they can understand and get started more easily when new functions of an equipment are introduced.